


Shooting Lessons

by atigerlilyangel, ecaracap



Series: The 100/Maze Runner Crossover [8]
Category: The 100 (TV), The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: M/M, Shooting Range
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 14:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2736551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atigerlilyangel/pseuds/atigerlilyangel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecaracap/pseuds/ecaracap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt has a new job in the camp and Jasper is just the guy to teach him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shooting Lessons

The preparation for battle had intensified, each one of the Gladers getting a specific order from Bellamy about what their job would be during an attack. Because of Newt’s leg, Bellamy decided that he would be less than helpful in hand to hand combat, despite his protests otherwise. He had been assigned to sniper duty, which he was a little leery about - he had never held a gun before, to his knowledge, and he wasn’t sure he’d be any better there than on the ground.

Jasper had been told earlier that day by Bellamy that he was going to have someone to train how to use a gun later. He couldn’t say he was displeased with the idea - having snipers would give them an advantage they hadn’t had before and they hadn’t had the bullets, the weapons, nor the people to spare before. Jasper felt like this was a good sign.

Newt was told to report to a boy named Jasper, who he has to have pointed out to him, never having met him before. 

Jasper had assumed that the reason Bellamy had picked this guy is because he had shot before, but as he sees Newt walking over, he realizes there might be a different reason.

“Hey,” Newt says to him dryly, “I suppose I’m your project for the afternoon.”

“I’m Jasper,” he introduces himself a little awkwardly - he was not the best with new people, too shy. He nods, hating the sound of the guy being his project, but he’s not sure how else to word it either. “Have you ever shot a gun before?” he says, handing the other boy one of the guns he had with him.

Newt takes the rifle, lifting it to hold in his hands - he knows how to hold a gun in theory, though he’s not sure about the specifics. “Never that I remember,” he says honestly, inspecting the gun closely.

Jasper raises a brow because that’s sort of an odd statement, “Alright, then I guess we should start with the basics. So you’ll want to hold it like this, against your shoulder,” he says, demonstrating, “And use the crosshairs in the scope. Where they meet is where the bullet will hit. Try to stay loose. It’ll kick back...which will be the hardest thing to learn, how to compensate in aiming, for the little control you’ll lose from the kick.”

Newt nods, holding the gun against his shoulder, holding it up before realizing he might not want to aim it towards anyone. He aims the barrel towards the trees, looking through the scope, squinting to try to see through it, “Bloody small, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Jasper agrees, “But the more you do it, the easier it’ll be to see through the sight. It all just takes practice.”

He holds it firmly against his shoulder, wondering just how much this thing kicked back if it was going to be the hardest thing to learn, “We going to go somewhere better to practice?”

“Yeah, we’ll go to the woods, but not far, where it’s still sort of our territory. We’ll start with large targets and work our way to something smaller, then farther. You’ll have to be able to do this from quite a distance if you’re going to be hiding in the trees.” He grabs his gun and a bag of supplies, gesturing for Newt to grab the other bag filled with supplies, “I don’t know how we’ll work on moving targets...maybe throw things for you to hit.”

Newt grabs the other bag, slinging it over his shoulder as he follows him off into the woods behind him. “Moving targets...” he snorts softly, “I don’t know if this is the best idea.” He isn’t exactly confident about his ability to do this - he doesn’t want to be the reason anyone from his group gets hurt or killed.

“It doesn’t sound like you have much of a choice,” Jasper says with a little sympathy in his tone. 

“No, don’t suppose I do,” he says with a frown. He’s never met someone more stubborn than Bellamy...even Alby hadn’t been that bad. 

“What would you want to do instead?” he asks curiously as they walked through the woods.

“Just...fight, you know. Hand to hand, spear to spear. Whatever I could do.”

“Well maybe you should just attack him and prove yourself. There’s nothing that guy likes better than someone having the guts to challenge him. But you run the risk of getting locked up again,” he says with a shrug.

“I don’t think there’s any way that I could take him,” Newt says, shaking his head. Bellamy was quite a bit more built than he was and, just like Minho, looked like he’d fight anyone that looked at him wrong.

“But being a sniper won’t be that bad. I’m going to be one too. Now that we don’t need everyone in hand to hand…” he pauses, “It could give us an advantage, being able to pick people off before they reach the gates, before the hand to hand begins.”

Jasper sets down the items, when he feels they’re far enough away from camp to not accidentally hurt anyone, but close enough to not be in real danger from the others, “They have snipers. It’ll level the playing field, especially if we had a way of finding theirs and taking them down. Then we wouldn’t lose so many of ours in hand to hand.”

“They have snipers too?” he says, confused, setting the bag down next to Jasper’s, holding on to his gun again. “I thought they didn’t have guns…”

“They don’t. They use bows and arrows, but they put archers in the trees...and they’re really good,” Jasper explains, “Scary good.”

"Hmm..." he tuts, thinking about the archers they had back in the Glade. Alby was always handy with a bow and arrow, but he doubts he would have been good enough to be a sniper in the trees. 

He takes a piece of chalk and draws a large circle on a tree and a smaller circle inside it, “So...we’ll start trying to get anywhere in the big one, but you wanna hit the smaller one in the next few days with regularity.”

“Alright, then. Large circle,” he say, lifting up his gun when Jasper gets out of the way. He anchors it against his shoulder, looking through the scope at the target, squinting his eyes as he tries to see. He lets out a slow breath, pulling the trigger, stumbling backwards with the kick of the gun, the bullet just grazing the edge of the tree, much too high. Newt curses and rubs his shoulder, “Bloody hell...what kind of gun is this?”

It’s hard for him not to chuckle a little as he’s caught off guard from the kick of the gun. It happens to everyone, no one expects it to be like that. “Yeah, it’ll take a while to get used to that kick back,” he said, “That’s why I said it might take all day to get into that large circle. But it’s good you were loose, if you try to resist the gun too much, you can dislocate your shoulder.”

“Doesn’t feel too bloody loose now,” Newt says with a wince, rotating his shoulder. He sighs, settling the gun back against his shoulder as he aims, “So I need to be more or less loose this time?”

“Try to relax a little more,” Jasper says, moving over to him. He stands behind him and leans in as he adjusts the gun. “Cradle it in your shoulder, but lean into it, don’t be afraid of it. Just act like the gun is a part of you,” he rests his hands on the other boy’s shoulders before pulling away, “Try again.”

Newt usually feels uneasy around new people, especially around people who lock them up, but he finds that he doesn’t so much mind it when Jasper helps him with his aim. “Little hard to do when I’ve never held a gun before,” he says with his usual dry wit, but it’s slightly more joking this time.

He sighs, cradling it more firmly in his shoulder, but still trying to be loose. He pulls the trigger again, the gun kicking back against his shoulder and he grunts lowly in pain. The bullet still misses the circle, but it’s more towards the middle of the tree this time.

Jasper grins. “You’re getting better,” he pauses, “I could shoot. Maybe if you see it, you’d be more comfortable copying it. But some of it will just be time.” That they didn’t really have, but he didn’t want to say that to him.

He sighs, a bit dejected, but nods, “Might be a bit helpful, yeah? Show me how it works.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Jasper holds the gun to his shoulder, almost naturally as he leans in to it, looking through the site, aiming at the tree. He takes a deep breath to feel steady and then he fires, hitting inside the smaller circle. “See, nothing to it,” he jokes.

Newt watches him carefully to see what he does - he makes it seem so easy, he’s not sure he’ll be able to shoot like that. “Nothing at all,” he says with a wry chuckle, “How’d you learn to shoot, anyway?”

“Trial and error. I never shot a gun until being out here,” he admits, “I was one of the first people attacked and taken by the Grounders. I guess I had extra motivation to try and defend myself.” His hand subconsciously moves to where the scar from the spear still exists.

“Taken?” he says curiously - he had heard that the Grounders had killed some of them, were trying to kill the rest of them, but he hadn’t heard about anybody being taken, “I guess that’s as good a reason as any. Gotta do whatever it takes.”

“Yeah. I went out on the first exploration with Finn and Clarke and Octavia and Monty. I was trying to impress Octavia, so I crossed this river first. When I got to the other side, they ran me through with a spear,” he recounts, gesturing for Newt to try again, “By the time they made it across, I had been taken. They found me eventually in Grounder territory and took me back to camp.”

Newt starts to aim again as he’s listening, trying hard to concentrate. He shoots again and once again misses, but he’s getting closer every time. “You got hit with a spear? And you’re still alive?” he says, thinking of the maze, how they barely escaped with their lives, a lot of which was thanks to some homemade spears.

“Yeah. Clarke’s a very good doctor,” he says to him. “And I don’t think the Grounders necessarily wanted to kill me."

“Did it work? What they wanted?” he says, frowning as he lines up to take another shot, this time hitting the outside of the large circle. Newt’s face brightens up slightly at his accomplishment.

"No," Jasper answered definitively, "I was bait. They brought me home. It was touch and go for a while, but they figured out a way to save me." He's not sure if he should mention that that help came from a Grounder - that would make this explanation much more complicated.

"Jesus," he says, shaking his head. He thinks that's being run through with a spear was pretty intense to be used as bait. "You know where we came from, right?" he says as he gears up to take another shot, "From our maze?"

“A little bit. I mean, rumors. I believe more of what Octavia says than anyone else. Since she talks to Minho a lot,” Jasper answers.

Newt laughs softly, rolling his eyes fondly, “Yeah, I’m sure he’d spill his guts about everything to her.” He can tell Minho is completely smitten with her and he’s not surprised, he likes Octavia just fine.

“We were kept there against our will,” he says, taking aim again while he talks, “Not exactly bait, but we weren’t there for a tea party, that’s for damn sure.”

Jasper nods, “But you guys fought your way out, right? Before coming here…”

“Yeah…” he says softly, as he takes another shot, still getting just the edge of the outer circle, but it’s progress, “Fought our way out through a load of Grievers only to fall into the hands of WICKED again. Which is why we ended up here.”

“And why you have to go to Mount Weather?” he guessed.

“That’s right,” he nods, “S’what they told us to do, where to go. Not a clue what’s up there...let alone how to get there. Which is why we got caught so easily, I’m sure.” He shakes his head thoughtfully, “We were supposed to get up there by the end of the week. But it looks like that’s not an option anymore.”

Jasper nods, “Yeah, I don’t think you’re going to make it there by then. But after all of this...a bunch of us will probably go, show you the way. We were supposed to go when we landed. They said there would be supplies there, supplies that would have survived the radiation and sun flares. It was supposed to be a safe haven for the upper members of our society, the government officials and stuff. But no one moved fast enough,” he shakes his head, “Anyway, we never made it. I got run through with a spear and we’ve been fighting Grounders ever since.”

“Sun flares…” he says softly, mostly to himself - maybe WICKED was telling them more of the truth than they thought. “I wonder what is so shucking important up there that we all need to get to it. Or if it’s even there anymore,” he says, wondering what exactly will happen to them when they don’t make it to the mountain in time. He can only hope that WICKED didn’t anticipate them meeting this group of people...maybe they’d be strong enough to fight WICKED too. 

“I don’t know. If the place has been locked up for the past hundred years like they say, then it could still be there. But it seems that there are a lot of people around that we weren’t counting on being here, so maybe they’ve gotten to it by now...maybe it’s how they’ve survived,” Jasper says.

“Hmm…” Newt tuts softly to himself. He knew that they had to get there one way or another and he hoped they’d actually be able to get there. He loads the gun again, firing at the tree, finally getting one inside the larger circle and he smiles proudly to himself.

Jasper pats him on the back, “Good job, man. More like those and we’re one step closer to solving the mystery of Mount Weather.”


End file.
